Google Earth and WinMe

Is there any way to run it?

[Stefan]

G Earth added high-res photos from DigitalGlobe for Ja in the last while. I'm getting sent screenshots from others, because the min requirement is stated as 2000/XP and I have WinMe. However, I decided to dl it anyway and give it a shot on my machine - this is happening now (I'm on dial-up).

Has anyone here ever tried running G Earth on Win 98 or Me? If it's simply not possible, does anyone have any brilliant ideas on how I can get around it? I simply don't have the money for a new computer at the moment, but could sure use access to the sat data.

[zCat]

There's a big "technology leap" between the Win95/98/ME and the NT/2000/XP versions of Windows, so I suspect it isn't possible to run 2000/XP-only apps on the DOS-based Windows versions.
(IANAWU - I am not a Windows user - so there may be some magic solution I know not of ;-).

However I did hear Google Earth has been released for Linux, so installing Linux might be your cheapest option (in terms of cost, not time...)

[Stefan]

Thanks, zCat:

Yeah, I'd wondered about using Linux - I saw it listed. I have a lot of programs I run using Windows now, though. Is it possible to install Linux while also keeping WinMe? I'm going to have to do some reading up on this.....

Added: Dl finished, and as I expected, it won't install.

[edited by: Stefan at 6:48 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2006]

[zCat]

In principle it should be fairly easy to install Linux alongside your existing OS. Even if you haven't got any free partitions on your hard disks, modern Linux installers should be able to shrink existing FAT partitions to make space. Ubuntu seems to be the newbie-friendly distribution of the moment, though I don't know whether Google Earth will run on that well.

(You'd be best off finding a Linux specific forum for more detailed installation help if you need it).